Children off school for 48 hours?

[Itssnotunusual]

I work in a high school setting and do my fair share of sending home due to illness and injury. We've recently had a sickness bug work it's way around school and it's been chaos. Staff and students have been ill in droves. Children who have been sick in the school have been sent home and parents have been told, by myself and other staff memebers, that they need to stay off for 48 hours after they have been sick which I though was pretty much standard. The staff who managed attendace have also been aware we've been sending students home with this in place.

They've suddenly taken umbridge and apparently we've been doing it wrong for the past few months of weeks and they only have to stay off for 24 hours. But surely I can't be the only one that thinks that's ridiculous? The NHS guidance is 48 hours after sickness and/or diarrhoea. We also have no written policy I can find on the matter. I know its annoying from an attendance point of view but surely that's the standard for a reason?

I'd raise it but I'm still on my probation till November so don't want to rock the boat too much.

Yanbu
24 hours is ridiculous and attendance are just thinking about their numbers
Yabu
24 hours is fine

www.nhs.uk/live-well/is-my-child-too-ill-for-school/

My children's school just been riddled with similar bug and its been 48 hours for them. We had sick midday Wednesday at school so didn't go back until Monday

It’s definitely 48 hours!!!

Surely it’ll just make attendance worse because more students will catch it and be off? Plus more staff will catch it.

It's 48 hours at my DD's school.

It's 48 hours in my children's schools and in my job.

Mandatory 48 hours for staff and students at my school

My DC’s school and nursery are both 48 hrs as well.

48 here too

My thoughts exactly! We've got loads of staff off at the minute too, 40+!

24 hours if it's just vomiting 48hours if it's d&v. For both staff and students at our school.

24 hours at our place

It’s 48 hours in our primary and as soon as the D&V stops in our high school. They have spelled out there is no 48 hour rule, much the same as my work. To be fair mine haven't been off with it at all during their time at the school and one has been there 4 and a bit years

I do think 48 hours is better than 24, but I also think it's quite arbitrary. There are so many different bugs that cause diarrhoea and vomiting and they have different contagious periods.

It's 48 hours at DS nursery

Its 48 hours at our school. However I've heard of schools suspending this where an awful bug has spread throughout the whole school as I think it just becomes inevitable that everyone catches it

It’s 24 hours for most sickness bugs but 48 for noro. Most of us can’t tell the difference so 48 hours is safer.

24 at our secondary school

48 hours at my schools. I think that's appropriate.

24hrs at our schools.

I thought it was 48 hours for primary and 24 for secondary.

48 hours at our school. Last year ds was sick at school, so I kept him off the next day even though he was fine. School still called me to find out why he wasn't in. I said I was more than happy for them to have him back, but assumed he was barred. They couldn't tell me to keep away fast enough when they remembered they had sent him home.

Primary school was 24 hours if they were sick. Secondary school never gave any guidance even when a sickness bug hit a huge proportion of the school. Just when they feel better.

My dd school is 48hrs

I hope this isn’t the pains I’m getting in my stomach this evening. They are dropping like flies at my school, I have a year 10 tutor group with a few kids that have never had a day off since year 7, 3 of the previous 100% kids were off today, this tells me it must be bad. We also had a poor kid throw up in assembly!

At my previous school there was no set time. If they were well enough to come in they should come in. Even if they’d been ill an hour or two before. Not my decision of course.